Apart from the disrespect to society and property that the looters showed, what struck me was how quickly the riots were turned into a blame game, with many people choosing to focus on the role of Black people in the riots.

I asked a friend and colleague in London: “The media are playing emphasis that black people are the ones looting in London, is this true?” to which she replies: “I can’t speak of every neighbourhood, but I just went past a shop being looted by four old white men”.

An aggrieved Facebook user writes on his wall: “Wow I know it a free country BUT I’m seeing a lot [of] people’s status updates & some of you I actually know! I just want to say LOOK don’t turn this into a RACE WAR all different people of ALL different ages & backgrounds have been causing chaos across the country by looting & robbing etc. There [are] a lot of youths doing bad but also a lot of adults with them rocking up to shops sending the kids in to steal. We are all angry & upset & worried but #This is Not a Race Thing! Calm down on the FB status...”.

Yes, the protest that transformed into this opportunist looting was triggered by the killing of a young black man, but to simply declare the UK wide riots a riot by Black Britain is not only untrue, but overlooks major issues that led up to the uproar.

Only one month ago, pupils at a school in the West Midlands protested and refused to go into class because of new rules implemented by their new principal. Through blackberry messenger, they were able to get a neighbouring campus involved too.

The truth of the matter is that there are a lot of combined factors that have contributed to how widely spread the riots were. From feelings of social exclusion, to the spending cuts, poor policies, and legislations that give greater rights to children over their parents, the Cameron government have a lot to discuss.

The UK riots is the outcome of these factors, and many observers say that it is something that has been waiting to happen for sometime now.

Yesterday I came across an African website that also joined in the race blame game, claiming that “Britain’s low income neighborhoods of Black Africans…” were responsible for the looting. Two things aggrieved me in this statement, the focus on black people, and the specification of Black Africans.

Libya, which has seen its own uprising in recent months, used the opportunity to ignite more riots when Yusuf Shakir, a presenter on the Libyan state-TV Al-Jamahiriyah, gave an abrupt address mid-air declaring Libya’s support for "black power in America and Britain" and that it has always defended blacks who "suffered racial discrimination" in the UK. He also added that they should "defeat this British regime" which "killed their brothers".

In his own contribution, Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe said what many international critics of the UK have said: “Britain I understand is on fire, London especially and we hope they can extinguish their fire, pay attention to their internal problems and to that fire which is now blazing all over, and leave us alone.”

Whatever the reasons behind the riots, there is a great need to focus on solving the problem, and not to blame them on Black Britons.

As Ian Dunt said in his article: "The first thing we have to do is separate the valid ideas from the invalid ones. Blaming this on multiculturalism, for instance, is laughable and demonstrably false, as any Turkish man defending his shop with a stick tonight can tell you..."